The Owl.
The owl, "the fatal bellman which gives the sternest good night," was the dread of the superstitious from the earliest times. Virgil introduces the owl among the prodigies and horrors that foreran the suicide of Dido. It was said that two large owls would perch upon the battlements of Wardour Castle whenever an Arundel's last hour had come. The cry of the owl is heard by Lady Macbeth, during the murder. Hogarth introduces the owl in the murder scene of his "Four Stages of Cruelty."
The Ethiopians, when they wished to pronounce sentence of death upon any person, carried to him a table upon which an owl was painted. When the guilty man saw it, he was expected to destroy himself with his own hand. To the peasants, the cry of the owl foretells hail and rain, accompanied by lightning. The practice of nailing the bird to a barn-door, to avert evil consequences, is common throughout Europe, and is mentioned by Palladius in his "Treatise on Agriculture." Pliny wrote: "If an owl be seen either within cities or otherwise abroad in any place, it is not for good, but prognosticates some fearful misfortune."